Ava's Man by Rick Bragg

Author:Rick Bragg
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780375413513
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2001-08-11T10:00:00+00:00

Federal men and county sheriffs harried him for thirty years, and while they locked him up now and then for carrying too much moonshine around in his bloodstream, they never caught him cooking.

“They chased him,” said James. “I reckon they caught everybody, everybody but Daddy.”

He remembers one time, when they were living in Alabama, they saw a big cloud of dust racing above the trees. Two carloads of county pulled up in the yard.

“I don’t like this,” said James, who was about fourteen.

“It don’t make me smile, neither, son,” Charlie said.

All eight car doors opened and men poured out. The sheriff—they believe it was the famous still-smasher Socko Pate—walked up to the porch.

“I’m looking for Mr. Chollie Bundrum,” he said.

“I am him,” Charlie said.

“I’d like to look around your place,” he said, “for a whiskey still.”

“You go ahead,” Charlie said, pleasant, not mocking. Socko was not a man you teased. “If I wasn’t gettin’ ready to sit down to dinner, I’d go with you.”

But as soon as he stepped inside, he turned to James and said, “Son, I believe they got me.”

But while the still was just a mile from the house, Charlie had found the perfect place. He had found a deep sinkhole, deeper than a man is tall, and had carefully scooped out a cave in the side of the hole—then covered that with vines and honeysuckle. He had not worn out a path walking to it because he eased through the weeds on a slightly different route every time he went to it.

“Unless he can fly,” the sheriff said, walking into the yard, “he ain’t been down there.”

He called to Charlie to come out of the house.

“Well, we didn’t have no luck,” he said. “We never found so much as a rabbit trail, all the way up in there.”

Charlie told them he would be sure to come and see them if he ever saw a whiskey still close by.

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